


Dark(er) Times

by yorkes



Series: Dark Times [2]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, original!Davina, the rest of the mikaelson fam too, will make more of an appearance in part 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 01:49:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10687290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yorkes/pseuds/yorkes
Summary: Times are more complicated now that vampires exist (COMPANION/SEQUEL TO DARK TIMES).





	Dark(er) Times

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! Enjoy, and know there's a Part 3 coming your way xx

 

**11th Century, What is Today Mystic Falls**

 

Davina had heard screams all of her life. 

On full moons, when the village could cower in their cave, she often imagined if such a sound was capable of coming from her own small body. She’d open her mouth, and imagine she was screaming (she would be silent though, as any sound would’ve been a death wish). The sound of agony and pain that erupted occasionally from the woods made her blood curdle, but she knew that by hiding away she would never have to experience it. She knew that if she stayed away from wolves she would never have to scream out for help, or to get last words out.

Like most kids, Davina was mostly incorrect. She would later learn that there were hardly ever any villagers in the wood (they knew better). The screams came from the monsters.

Lying on her bed, not knowing that poison had just coursed through her body only to be overrode by something stronger, she opened her mouth up to scream like when she was little. For the first time in her life, sound came out. 

But not a thundering roar. No, the sound that managed its way out of Davina’s aching body was a cry. Not of a newborn baby, shrieking until until the whole village woke, but of a child who realizes that life isn’t magical (in the metaphorical sense, that is).

A soft dusk light peered in from the windows, but all she felt was cold. There was this unexplainable urge to do… something, deep inside of her that burned from her core up to her tongue. Something told her to stay firmly in her bed, as if the pain she felt made her comatose, but the pain also wanted her to do something.

She called out to her mother, who she knew would be in the next room. She must have caught something wicked to have made her sleep so long (it would be hard to believe that her mother would’ve let her sleep the day away if she weren’t ill). 

Davina called out her once, twice, thrice; she realized she couldn’t hear the sounds of anyone. The normal commotion outside her walls was silent, but the slits that gave her room light didn’t allow for further observation.

She thought it was the concern moving her.

It took less effort to push her body up than she had thought. Her quick actions led to a quick departure from her bed though, and when her feet hit the floor she led out an involuntary hiss.

Glass shards were scattered on the floor, next to the remains of vials.

In the shards was a shimmering blue stone set in a silver ring, unlike anything she’d seen. She delicately picked it up from it's bed of broken glass and inspected it. She was in the process of slipping it onto her finger when a new sensation overtook her.

She began to smell something so coppery that she could almost taste it. When she stepped outside of her home, she did. 

At first she didn’t register what she was doing or what had happened. Blood was smeared everywhere and bodies were sprawled out. The entire scene was absolutely horrific, and she should’ve gotten sick from the mere site. Even in the waning light everything was clear as day, though there was barely any light other than stars and forgotten lanterns. It was a massacre, and it looked like she was the only one left standing.

She felt like she was dying, a slower death than her memory offered her, but once she saw the blood it was as if something took over her body. It wasn’t an aggressive act at first, for some reason she just felt as though it was necessary. Once the first fistful of blood was consumed, things changed. 

For a few minutes the fact that her village had been massacred wasn't a bother. The initial pain and confusion was gone and all that was left was a hunger that she knew how to satisfy. 

Her brain was too preoccupied to wonder why most of the blood was drained from the victims already. Too preoccupied to wonder why they were dead in the first place. She didn't even stop to wonder if her parents were okay (but that was probably because she already knew the answers).

There was no need for fangs yet, just a savage scavenging. 

Davina was days behind the rest of the newly turned vampires that she yet to knew existed. Esther had gone to Davina after her children had been stabbed and awoken to be fed human blood. Everything looked as if it was going fine, and she slipped out to give the same thing to who would’ve eventually been in their family. She’d given Davina immortality, seemingly without any cost. 

The red vial had wine laced with blood. The dark vial had poison. She was fed the spell, killed to trigger it, and the rest was left up to Davina. Her body eventually led her the human blood that was needed to seal the process. 

The blood after the initial handful was the consequence to her new condition; a condition that she was unaware of. 

Drinking the blood wasn't the bad part, even if it was the leftovers. It felt right, but her conscience wasn't driving her. Instinct kept her going, and it motivated her until there was nothing left to scavenge.

The bad part came when she paused at the center of the village. She felt great, the rush of blood granting her momentary relief, but with that moment everything came flooding back to reality. 

Davina was standing blood soaked and alone in a graveyard, and she had no idea why. She had no idea who had done it or why she was grateful for the blood spilled. 

Lingering on thoughts proved to be hard when her senses kicked in. If death had a scent so early on, she smelled it. If death had a feeling, she could feel it in her bones. She thought that she could hear the death. Not the screams she heard earlier, but the silence. But the silence was broken by more than her heavy breathing. 

Leaves crunching alerted Davina that she wasn't alone. It sounded as close as could be, but she'd learn the sound came from far away. 

The blood caked into her clothing and her hands were shouting at her. Reminders of the animalistic thing she had just done. 

In Davina's mind, the person walking near their village would see her as a victim. She was ready to play the part. In another part of her brain, one she was still grateful to have, she felt shame. 

The footsteps neared, and it became clear it was more than one person. Wiping her bloodied mouth with her hand she tried to tell herself the blood was some weird one time deal. That Esther had accidentally put her in some kind of trance. She pushed the fact that deep down she still wanted it, that she still had a remnant of the craving. 

"There's someone left," a voice declared, and Davina was too caught up in her mind to recognize it. Too shaken to tell the tone wasn’t happy.

She thought that someone someone would save her from whatever had happened. Stop her for continuing whatever was happening to her. She was a lucky survivor in a horrible accident.

The accident was surely horrible, but her survival was more than luck. The timing had been lucky, and the stuff had happened in between was unexpected, but the outcome was planned.

The Mikaelson family was turned days before Davina. Things looked promising when Esther decided she was going to turn Davina as well. Then they took a turn for the worse, Klaus triggered the werewolf gene, and the village was massacred. 

All that destruction happened while poison coursed through Davina's system.

The family had spread out beyond the village, but they had stayed close. They were confused about everything too, vampirism was new, and they didn’t want to let go of their village just yet. The rustling in the village had brought three of them back. 

Perhaps morbid curiosity, but also to make sure no one could pin the massacre on them. 

Rebekah had been ready to play the lucky survivor card too. Before she killed the poor soul. She didn’t want to adapt to whatever lifestyle she had taken on, but she couldn’t control herself. 

If Davina had still been a witch there a one hundred percent chance she would’ve been killed on the spot. But she wasn’t, not that she knew what she was yet. 

Her heart wasn’t beating. That was what signaled Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah of what she had become. Rex remembered her mother frantically coming in one day, and spitting some obvious lie out to Mikael about where she had been. Later she would connect the dots to the shaking and bloodied former witch who stood before her. 

“Someone should get Kol,” the blonde breathed, slowly edging toward Davina. Elijah flashed away, but Davina barely noticed the speed. Klaus stood uncertain from the edge of the town’s center. “What happened?” Rebekah asked, her voice barely a whisper. She knew only one thing could’ve happened though, unless there was way more to the story than the unintended consequences. 

But Davina didn’t know. Nothing made sense, and as she found herself grabbing onto Rebekah she realized she wasn’t the only person who was bloody. As she let Rebekah hug her, she chose to ignore the slick feeling of blood on her arms.

Davina lost herself in thought, which lead to hearing noises too far away and smelling ashes from a forgotten fire. She was so caught up that she didn't register Rebekah pulled away. It wasn't until she heard a choked version of her name that she looked up.

She stumbled out of Rebekah’s grip, but didn’t make any immediate movements toward Kol. He was looking at her with a sort of anger, and it scared her to death. For a moment she thought he was angry with what she had done. There was no time for her to make thoughtful connections about the situations… for all she knew she was somehow a monster, and the Mikaelsons had managed to escape her.

Kol had thought the blood was Davina's... that somehow she had made it through the initial frenzy only to be unlucky. He felt anger toward his siblings, thinking they had done something to her, but then he realized. 

If she had been human still, he would've wanted to drain her of blood. No matter the romantics involved, live pumping blood would've been enough to trigger any of the Mikaelsons at such an early stage.

One long look at Davina could told Kol that she had lost her magic too. She couldn't even tell herself that all the witchcraft in her veins was gone yet; her body was too busy focusing on the hunger and the pain. But her empty and frantic eyes expressed it. Magic gives a certain type of grounding.

"I am so sorry," Davina muttered, eyes closing themselves shut in an attempt to stop tears. Nothing really made sense at that moment, but the look Kol had given her froze her to the bone. Her words came out without much thought, and it was universal apology for things she had no need to feel bad her. "I don't know why-"

Eyes still shut, she was cut off when Kol grabbed onto her hands. They were stained with blood. She didn't have to open her eyes to know his were too. 

"This is not your fault, Davina." Hundreds of years later he would claim he was the reason for it, but on that first day of their forever he just stayed with her and explained.

Klaus vanished, assumingly off to see where Finn was at. The retelling was too much for him to bear apparently. That, or he didn’t give a damn about Davina.

Elijah and Rebekah stayed though. And Kol did, obviously Kol did.

She felt a pang of emotion when she had seen him, and it stuck with her. She had always loved Kol, she wasn’t denying that, but what she felt when she looked at him in that horror was an entirely new feeling. Comfort, passion, longing, fear, and wonder… all rolled into one unrecognizable emotion. It was like everything she had felt was coming to the surface and was fighting for her to acknowledge them.

Davina wasn’t sure where to start, but nothing made sense to her. She gave a blurred run down of events, from when Esther gave her the bottles to when she heard the leaves crunching. Somewhere in there she made a hollow acknowledgement that her parents were in the pile of the dead. No one was looking at her with shock and disgust, only comfort and their own brand of confusion. She asked for the answers she knew they could give her from their composed states about what had happened to them, and veered away from her own specific situation. Why, what, who, how?

Elijah explained everything while Davina sat with Kol, who found himself in shock every moment he looked over to her. He had been mourning her, and rattled with guilt that he couldn’t even remember if he had killed her, and then there she was. She looked like something out of the old stories that Esther used to tell her children, of deities and other forces. Kol didn’t know what that made him, but he was grateful that he was even standing near her. 

Rebekah had helped Davina scrub off the drying blood, which helped settle her. She was no longer looking down to see the blood of a fellow villager on her hands. It was there though, burned into her mind. And she could smell it, even though they had moved further into the woods.

There was nothing to be done about the shaking. She could not stop trembling despite the warm weather. Despite the comfort in kindred souls.

Elijah gave Davina their theory on everything that had happened, and Kol held tightly onto her. If he let go, maybe she’d disappear and he’d be left alone without anything again. Kol knew her magic was gone, but her presence was enough to trick his mind into thinking it was back. 

Davina welcomed his presence, and leaned into his hold, but the tremors in her body kept her from feeling much comfort. 

Kol felt helpless in all of this. He tried to suppress his own hunger and focus his mind on helping Davina, but he was no better than the rest of them. "Everyone will be fine," he kept telling her, like a mantra. After a while he wasn't holding onto to Davina for her, but for himself.

 

* * *

 

 

**11th Century, France**

 

Always and forever had been promised to the Mikaelson, but Davina was not a Mikaelson. 

“You know she’s better off on her own. You know that she does not have a thing to worry about now,” Rebekah said in an attempt at reassuring Kol. The Mikaelsons, minus a Claire, were making their way through France. They were actively hiding from Mikael, and attempting a low profile. “He’s under the impression that she died along with everyone else in that village.”

Kol nodded, somewhat passively. They were in the midst of hiding from their father (who had decided that his children shouldn't be alive) and it was a combination of plain sight and closed doors. For Kol specifically, it was the lot of warnings to be a lot more reserved come feeding time. 

Davina on the other hand, went in the opposite direction. Where the Mikaelsons went West, she went East. It was Elijah’s idea, and not a bad one for Davina’s sake, but one that left Kol on edge. 

There hadn’t been a day since they turned that the two had been apart, and then a quick move of separation turned into nine months. 

A time in which Rebekah selfishly thanked her mother for impulsively bringing Davina into her scheme. Vampirism had made her brothers into caricatures of themselves in a sense; their traits prominent and clear. Kol had something darker peek out in addition. A manic carelessness when it came to lives lost by their curse. 

He was hanging on by a thread, and that was made undeniably clear when that thread was being stretched thin to another side of a continent. 

Kol was just barely hanging on and Rebekah had no choice but to try to remind him of why he should. 

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder,” she mused, hoping that the distance wouldn't carry on too much longer. Kol had an incident at a tavern the night before, and Klaus had come close to kicking him out. 

“Who said that?” Kol asked dryly. Rebekah has been preaching to him for days on end. 

“Me, who else?” 

His tight lipped smile showed his gratitude for a distraction, but his mind was just somewhere else entirely. 

The entire situation was starting to weigh on him. He'd taken on a lighter stance towards their vampirism in order to keep Davina sane, but that role was twisting itself. He wasn't killing for the blood anymore, he was killing for the thrill of it. And as his brothers progressively grew accustomed to vampirism, Kol was trying hard to fight it. 

Fighting wasn't even in his vocabulary when Davina was still around. Yet with her gone, and with his void of magic mixed with resentment towards their situation, Kol felt like he needed to do something - anything - to act against the world. 

At that moment the Mikaelsons were in the castle of some high family pretending to be some form of royalty. At the castle during the day, killing some townsfolk at night.

Kol had been less than discreet. 

“You know, you two should be really be married,” Rebekah mused. “Not just saying you two are. A ceremony and all that, like you were originally going to have.”

Kol opened his mouth to say something, but Rebekah cut him off. 

“Do not say there isn’t a point, brother. Of course there is. If we’re meant to live forever we might as well do something epic with it.”

Kol smiled. He had been shaking his head. 

“I was going to say I should and we will,” he corrected her. “Just as soon as I get her back. Soon as we get her back.”

“Soon as you get her back,” Rebekah repeated, with a devilish grin. Devilish but happy all the same. 

 

* * *

  
  


**1114, Southern Italy**

 

“Where are you taking me?” Davina asked only somewhat accusingly. Kol had told her to keep her eyes closed, but she was fluttering her eyes just to catch a peek at where they were going. “We told the rest the family that we’d be there already.” Rebekah, Klaus, and Elijah and summoned them a month prior, and they had taken their time in reaching their destination. Elijah had mentioned something about vampire hunters while Rebekah mentioned something about a husband.

And so it goes.

“No cheating,” he scolded, and Davina rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see. She was stumbling over what she assumed to be stone. Kol was trying his best to lead her, but Davina was itching just to open her eyes. 

When she did, she was confused. Kol’s smile was broad. Kol’s grin still popped up regularly, but less and less. In it’s place what something Davina could only describe as a smile.

The past month had been the only change in the pattern. Kol was excited to see the rest of his family, but it was clear things hadn’t ended well between them a century before. Kol had showed up in Eastern Europe with a higher tolerance for blood and a desperate need to see Davina. Davina had missed him too, but something had changed with Kol. 

So when his smug grins turned into more genuine smiles, with less blood on the incisors, Davina was more than pleased. And she smiled a little brighter too despite the freezing temperatures they were enduring.

It made Davina smile a little brighter too.

“It’s very nice, Kol,” she assured him, squeezing his arm. She looked around the water’s edge she’d been guided to. There was a stream, and a very pretty forest surrounding her, but nothing that screamed surprise. No fresh blooded and compelled humans waiting around, or anything of the sort. “But I am not sure I understand the point of all this.” They had left their carriage on the side of the road, and worked their way into the trees. 

“In all honesty, I’ve never been here, but the man down at that Inn said it was a nice spot,” he readily admitted, still smiling. 

“For what may I ask?” Davina gave him a pointed look. The inn keeper had been shoddy at best so Davina’s mind went somewhere else. She moved closer to kiss him, but Kol held her out at arm’s length.

“For romantic occasions. I told him I was going to ask for your hand,” he told her, knowing what she had thought. “Shame on you, Davina Claire.” 

“Mikaelson,” she corrected. “You do remember we’ve already been through all that.”

“Old habits-”

Davina jumped back from his hold, just out of his reach. 

“Wait, that man thought we weren’t already officially wed” she clarified. “That man, who owns the inn we stayed at lastnight, believes me to be a woman of loose morals?”

“Murder is pretty loose,” Kol muttered, trying to get her out of the details.

“I meant like a whore,” she deadpanned. 

“No,” he said firmly. “Even if he did he probably thought you were high class, like a king’s mistress or something.”

“Thank you” she accepted, slightly exasperated. “Just tell me why you wanted a romantic spot.” It was romantic, all soft lights and warm greens and babbling streams. 

“I thought it would be fun if-” he paused to scoop something out of his jacket, and Davina understood was his smile was all about “-we got rings.” Kol had been antsy. In his hands lay two rings glinting off gold. “It’s become more customary since we first did it, so I thought we could do it over again. This time with rings.”

Rings had been customary gifts even back when they had initially been engaged. As the years went on, they became a symbol of marriage and the union itself.

Davina forget about her petty anger, and beamed at him. She hurried into his embrace for a kiss, though it was more tame than what she had been imagined just minutes before.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she mumbled between pecks on his lips, “yes!”. She finally pulled back and held her hand up. “What comes first? The vows or the rings?”

“Vows,” Kol thought aloud. He wasn’t certain about that, but Davina went right along with it.

“I do, again, Kol Mikaelson.”

Davina hoped that someday the process would be more ceremonious. All it took for them to be officially married was two little words each. Lovely, awestrucken words, but still - two words.

“I do, again as well, Davina  _ Mikaelson _ .”

“You know, with all these new traditions we might just need to do this every century,” she mused, moving her hand back and forth in the light. In the setting sun the shine was mesmerizing. The spell was only broken when Kol swooped in for a kiss.

“That can be arranged,” he smiled against her lips.

"Always and forever," she tried, trying out the phrase. Kol didn't seem fond, but she knew it meant a lot to the Mikaelson family.

He was silent for a moment, and though Davina's eyes were so close to his eyes she couldn't read them.

"Forever and always," he rephrased. "I think I like that better."

 

And for the most part, it was.

_ But that very next day daggering was discovered. _

 

* * *

 

 

**13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th…**

 

Dagger. Awaken. Awaken. Dagger. Massacre. Dagger. Awaken. Repeat. 

"Forever, (Whenever), and Always."

 

* * *

 

**1920’s, Chicago**

 

It wasn’t long before Davina left New Orleans. Klaus let her stay out of her coffin because he wanted to see her depressed with nothing to do about it. That was her punishment for helping Kol with his plan. 

She’d gotten used to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to un dagger Kol on her own. She’d need Klaus’ consent unless she wanted a dagger to her heart herself. She had learned her lesson in Spain. 

Though she lingered around The South for a while it wasn’t until she got news of what had happened to the rest of the family. Being an original vampire was little help when Mikael could get to her at any moment. So, she found herself in Chicago with other Mikaelsons. Safety in numbers. 

“So who’s this Stefan?” Davina asked. Rebekah and Klaus were already in the full swing of the city when she dropped in. It also seemed that Rebekah had found someone new to spend her time with, according to a quick remark the blonde had earlier made. Last she had known Marcel was back in her sights, but Rebekah’s romantic ventures could give an instant whiplash.

(Davina always liked Marcel though. She was always rooting for them.)

Popping in and out of history was hardly helpful either. One moment Bex was falling some some sculptor in Vienna, a decade later Davina was waking up to a new dalliance with a prince in France.

“The Ripper of Monterrey,” Klaus interjected, dropping down drinks at their table. Naturally he'd gotten Davina some concoction with gin, her least favorite alcohol. When she huffed and pushed it towards him, he shrugged. “It’s prohibition, you have to settle for what's available.” 

The smug comment was only exaggerated by the club they were at. Jazz coursed through the venue almost as much as the drinks, which came in all shapes, sizes, and mixtures. She rolled her eyes and sank into her seat.

“Ripper?” Davina repeated, eying Rebekah. Now it was the blonde’s turn to sigh. Davina had her mean streaks, but that leaned more towards the psychological and short term. Except for a few unsightly occasions that she would swore were out of necessity. 

“A nice one,” was what Rebekah gave in response, along with a careful look. Davina may always be a couple steps behind on who Rebekah was seeing, but she also always knew that information was being veiled from Klaus. 

“Decide for yourself, he was just getting some other refreshments for us before he stopped in,” Klaus informed her, taking the neglected gin for himself. “Until then, how was your time in…,” he stopped, urging Davina to fill in the blank. 

“Charleston? Lovely. There’s a school for young witches there,” she said, before launching into information she was sure Klaus knew. He was many things, and nosy with a knack for compelling spies was one of them. She left out the part where she was continuing to work on a dagger that could kill him, hoping she’d been covert in her the second stab at it. 

“How’s the climate change?” a new voice in the conversation asked, as if it has been listening the whole time. 

“A change,” Davina answered, turning to face the edge of their booth. “Mr. Salvatore I presume?” The change in Rebekah’s body language was enough to tip her off, really. The nod was extra assurance. 

“I'm afraid I have no clue who you are, though,” Stefan admitted. He didn't sound partially troubled by this, only a bit confused. 

“Davina Mikaelson,” she introduced, not going as far as extending her hand. Stefan was busy filling wine glasses with what was certainly not wine. 

Her comment caused a brow of his to rise.

“I didn't realize there were six siblings,” he offered while topping off his own glass. “Never heard of another sister. I can't say I see the family resemblance.” 

Davina never knew why she got left of the tales of the original vampires. Sure stories got muddled, but she felt she could've added a surprise twist to it in the least. She wasn’t surprised that she'd been left out of this specific retelling by Klaus though.

Perhaps if she sired a few more people word would've gotten out. 

“I’m not related by blood,” she clarified, taking a sip from her glass. Well, technically, the blood that turned them coursed through all their veins (but that was a technicality). “I take it you haven’t met Kol?” she asked, knowing he couldn’t have.

“Ah, Kol, the psychotic one,” he confirmed with Rebekah, and it was a statement Davina was never sure how to respond to. As titles went it wasn't the most flattering, but it was a descriptor to match the name to the stories. 

The instinct to narrow her eyes always won though.

Rebekah shrugged in agreement with Stefan, less affirming than she would've been without Davina in her audience. It wasn't a secret Kol didn't always do so well out of his coffin.

The chatter went on, moving away from Kol and onto more timely matters. Stefan asked Rebekah to dance, and accepting she left a hostile pair behind. 

“It's for his own good,” Klaus piped up, cutting the air between Davina and him. “He had to know that dagger wouldn't work out even if I hadn't caught on.” 

“I helped him,” she reminded, not caring if she were to rile him up. After taking a sip of her drink of the blood Stefan had brought, she asked, “is this all for my own good?” 

He knew was she was asking, just like she already knew the answer. Kol and Davina hardly ever saw the same time periods because together they were dangerous. They made quite the pair.

 

 

Davina took a shaky breath when she saw Kol’s coffin, like she always did. It took a month to wear Rebekah down into telling her where Klaus had hid him (only succeeding when blackmail was brought into question). 

It had only been a decade since she’d seen him, which was on the shorter side of the spectrum they had experienced, but it never got much easier. 

“Sorry Finn,” she muttered, sidestepping his coffin. It was more habit than anything; Finn had always despised Davina and the feeling was mutual. Whenever he would wake up he would realize just how much he had missed out though… and that thought gave Davina a pang of guilt. She knew the confusion of waking up only just ten years.

Her own coffin was right next to Kol’s, but she tried not to look at it. 

With the hand that didn't contain the bags of blood, she popped open Kol’s coffin. She doubted she had long before Klaus somehow figured out where she was. She tried not to make an ordeal out of it, taking the stake out with a single movement **.**

“Before you freak out and try to find some better blood, know that you can't be up for long,” Davina blurted out when she saw Kol’s eyes shoot open. She released the blood bag in her hand and decided to continue as Kol’s eyes blinked, adjusting to the dim light. “It's 1924, we’re in Chicago, and I’m pretty sure I'm about to get staked so I wanted to see you first. You know, in case Klaus decides to undagger you the day after.” 

Davina held Kol’s gaze, gauging his reaction. The hurt from the last time his eyes were open had melted into a blend of anger and happiness. 

“Always a sight for sore eyes,” Kol said finally, not taking his eyes from her as he ran through the supply of blood she’d brought him. Wiping the blood that was running down his chin, he grinned, as if he realized that he was really was awake. The grin on his face attached itself to Davina’s cautious smile for a moment, before she lightly pushed against him. 

“We don't really have time for much,” she said, barely in a whisper, “if Klaus found me here I think he'd find a way to kill me for good.” Though the last thing she wanted to do was talk, she thought, as she held her palms firmly out. 

Kol jerked back, and with his movement a look of concern. 

“What did you do?” 

“I’ve been working on that dagger, the one from New Orleans, and I think I finally got it. I mean I still have to find a witch to make it for me but I have it all worked-” 

“Don’t do it,” he pushed, interrupting what was becoming a proud announcement. Davina dropped their clasped hand. She hadn't even realized she'd taken his until the pressure was gone from her palm. “Are we ever really going to get Klaus? You can talk to him, tell him you're done, and maybe my sentence will shorten a bit. If we’re not threats-”

“We’re what? Cowards?” Davina couldn't place the tone that came out of her own mouth. It wasn't anger, it wasn't hurt… it was more like confusion. 

Kol fished for her hand that had fallen. 

“If we’re not threats,” he repeated “maybe we can try to live an ordinary life.” The incredulous look on Davina’s face made him continue on. “Well, more ordinary. In the sense that a married couple would not live with all their relatives.” 

Davina but firmly shook her head. 

“We’re hardly normal. Normal people hardly get labeled psychotic,” she asserted, letting herself twine their hands despite it. 

“Who would say such a thing about you, darling?” Kol asked with feigned offense. He knew exactly what she had meant, even if he didn't like to talk about. When no smile was garnered, he let his own drop. “You said it yourself, we don't have much time. Are we really going to spend about it talking about my habits?” He asked, this time a voice hushed and obviously trying to persuade. 

Habits. The way it said it managed to rile Davina up and break her heart at the same time.

“Yes,” she pressed. “Because if Klaus were to stake me tomorrow, and wake you up the day after that, I'll be damned again if in fifty years I have to nod along to people talking about you as some maniac because who am I to dispute evidence I can't bear witness to.”

“Would you rather me massacre a company of men with you by my side?” Kol was upset, but that wasn't the part that broke her heart. 

“You know what I want,” Davina said, looking down at the daylight ring that glinted in the low glow of the attic they were in. It brought her back to the beginning of it all.

Daylight rings gave them a chance to blend in. Act the part. But acting the part didn't involve shady murders. 

And sure, Davina wasn't a saint. She had been spiraling for a good century before she got a wake up call. A stake, a long slumber, and then awakened by story after story of monstrosities Kol had committed. They needed each other to make it through.

Davina shouldn't have been able to preach a straighter path, not even to Kol. His offenses may have been a regularity, but Davina’s were taken as atrocities. The only reason Davina could preach was because Kol let her. 

Kol’s wake up call came every time he woke up with Davina. Unluckily for him, the memory rather than the real deal only inspired the opposite effect.

“That's why I need you to stay awake,” he told her, as if it was their only option. “In a century we can rethink a master plan, but haven't we played the long game enough?” 

The long game was quite possibly the biggest understatement ever. What they had been through was a hundred and one lifetimes of never quite being together. 

Even though it hardly needed answering, Davina never got to answer the question before a stake was rammed into heart.

 

* * *

  
  


**Modern Day Mystic Falls**

 

After almost a century each Mikaelson sibling was awake.

Each time Davina remembered this she was shocked. Even Finn was there.

The biggest shock was that Esther was there too.

“So what did she say to you?” Davina asked Kol, chewing tentatively on a french fry. They were at someplace called the Mystic Grill, and it was one of the few times that Davina had ventured out of the Mikaelson compound. Since waking up several days prior, there had been a lot to take in. 

“Not much,” Kol said, looking around the restaurant. There were a few people looking at them with more than sheer curiosity, but he wrote them off. Their hometown had remained a hotbed for the supernatural, and those supernatural were aware of who had come back into town. “She told me that she was happy I had you,” he said with a smile.

“She said that to me too…,” Davina commented, not as positively as he had. “She told me she almost hadn’t turned me though,” she added, in a small voice.

A day before Esther had pulled Davina aside. She spoke of how Davina had always been like a daughter to her, but she admitted she wasn't always sure she had made the right choice to turn her. That she had been rash in her decision. After a thousand years of feeling as though Esther had went out of her way to help her, it felt like a stab from one of Klaus’ stakes. Sure, Esther had bitten her tongue and went on to repeat her statement about wanting them all to be a family, but she felt something underneath her words. While there was sincerity when she thanked Davina for being there for Kol, there was also a biting disappointment.

Esther’s approval was the one thing that made her feel a part of the Mikaelson family; made her feel more connected to that idea of always and forever. Davina knew from the moment that Esther walked into that room days before that she wasn’t though. She had been a Mikaelson in honor for a millennia and by marriage for almost as long, but she felt like an outsider in that reunion. 

Deep down she was a Claire, and there wasn’t anyone left for her to make pacts with.

“It made me think, what if I wasn’t here?” she thought aloud, wishing she wouldn’t be so existential and ponderous. For the first time in almost forever, there was no virtual threat for Kol and her. The calm felt stranger and eerier than it should have. “What if I died along along with everyone else… or I simply didn’t turn and got old and died when it was my time? I could’ve been a blip in your life, and you would’ve been all of mine.” 

“You’re here though,” Kol reminded her, looking at her warily. “And I don’t want to think of what my life would’ve been like if you weren’t there.” His voice was sad, but not for long. “You know how poorly the times you were staked went, darling, do you really want to think about a lifetime like that?” He laughed, so she laughed, but she was still uneasy from the idea that her life could’ve been cut off so long ago.

“You might not have been so angry,” she thought with something like a laugh, “maybe my timely death could’ve saved a few lives.” She smiled like it was a joke, and maybe it was. She was letting herself think too much with the resurfacing of Esther.

“Would’ve been the opposite,” Kol asserted, as if it were simply fact. He looked at her for a moment without saying anything, and the look in his eyes made Davina feel better. “The best thing about being alive is getting to be with you.”

Davina blinked. She couldn’t help but smile but the thought of what could’ve been tugged at her brain. If Esther swayed the other way that night…

But ultimately it didn’t matter. She didn’t get always and forever like everything else did, but she deserved it. She stuck with them and she didn’t have the same obligation too. That made her the most deserving of any of them. 

“Besides,” he said, softly though firmly, “you would never have been a blip. You’re too important to be a blip in anyone’s story. Especially mine.”

While the compliments were helping get rid of Davina’s mood, she wanted to shift to a lighter topic. 

“I love you, too,” she said, this time with a proper smile. She glanced around the room herself, and took note of the people who were looking onto their table. “Wanna bet on something?” she asked suddenly, taking note of the confusion on their audiences’ faces. She was feeling more herself, and wanted to rid her mind of what Esther had said to her.

Kol looked intrigued, and his grin turned into more a smirk. 

“What does the winner get?” 

Davina thought for a moment.

“Anything they want,” she said with a shrug. And Kol’s expression was instantly mischievous. 

“I’ll win, so don’t get too ahead of yourself… but you’re down?” Kol nodded, still pleased with the turn of events. 

“You said I’m too important to be a blip in anyone’s story? Well, I bet you that tonight at the ball that the supernatural population in this town will be shocked to know I exist,” she told him, knowing she won already. “ I’m always a surprise.”

“I’ll take the bet,” he said. “Not because I think I’ll win, but because I want to know what  _ you _ want.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I apologize for this taking a million years to finish. Props to anyone who commented on Dark Times because every time I saw a genuinely kind comment I wrote a bit more. I'm desperate for reassurance so please, reassure me. Keep that in mind for Part 3! It's gonna strictly be a rewrite of Mystic Falls/TVD S3 after Darker Times leaves off.
> 
> Three things to note! 1) I know this is not exactly how things happened with the Mikaelsons when they turned in canon, but it was too exhausting to find the actual events and make them work with Davina. I kept them generally the same (I think). 2) I know Kol is more originals!Kol than vampdiaries!Kol and I have strong reasoning for that which goes in line with my extensive Kolvina meta. Hit me up on my tumblr if you're interested in my thought process, but long story short I tried to imagine a Kol who already knew Davina (and had love and attention lbr) and worked in the daggerings and eluded to family dynamics. I have strongly negative feelings about always and forever. 3) Marriage in the 11th/12th century confuses me, but it seems the rings and vows thing I found on several sources online. Don't kill the messenger of possibly incorrect info.


End file.
